The Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) is a hierarchical classification system of geographical areas and consists of a number of interrelated structures. It provides a common framework of statistical geography and enables the production of statistics which are comparable and can be spatially integrated.

This is the final edition of the ASGC. From 2011 onwards the ABS will be using the new statistical geography called the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS).

This product, Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) Digital Boundaries, Australia 2011 (cat. no. 1259.0.30.001), contains the digital boundaries and .csv hierarchy files current for the ASGC Edition 2011 (date of effect 1 July 2011). The digital boundaries are presented in MapInfo Interchange Format (.mid/.mif) and ESRI Shapefile (.shp) Format, and are based on the datum GDA94.

The ASGC covers Geographic Australia including the external territories of Cocos (Keeling) Islands & Christmas Island, but excluding all other external territories.

The product includes boundaries of Local Government Areas, Statistical Local Areas, Statistical Divisions, Statistical Subdivisions, States, Statistical Districts, Major Statistical Regions, Statistical Regions and Statistical Region Sectors, current at 1 July 2011. The digital boundaries are available only at one level of detail. These boundaries are intended for import and display in GIS and desktop mapping packages and, because of the high level of detail, they are not suitable for use in 'low-end' mapping packages such as those included in Excel.

Note that it is vitally important to understand which edition of the ASGC has been applied to the statistical data which you are analysing.

Operating Environment

The digital boundary files are in MapInfo Interchange Format (.mid/.mif) and ESRI Shapefile (.shp) format. MapInfo Interchange Format can be imported directly into MapInfo and other common Geographic Information Systems (GIS) or desktop mapping packages. The .mid/.mif files are text format and can be edited and manipulated for import to less common GIS and CAD systems.

The .mid/.mif files cannot be used directly with viewing tools such as MapInfo ProViewer.

The digital boundary files have the datum specified as 116 (GDA94). Users of MapInfo 6.0 or later are able to load data sets based on GDA94 directly, without transformation. Earlier versions of MapInfo cannot interpret GDA94 correctly and there may be alignment problems between data sets based on this datum and other earlier datums.

<11> represents 2011 the year of the Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) Edition

<a> indicates the data is at a high level of detail i.e. "all points" data

<AUST> indicates the data covers all of Australia as defined in ABS publication Catalogue Number 1216.0

Within the files, the States/Territories (S/T) are identified by unique one digit codes.

Code

S/T

1

New South Wales

2

Victoria

3

Queensland

4

South Australia

5

Western Australia

6

Tasmania

7

Northern Territory

8

Australian Capital Territory

9

Other Territories

File Attributes

All column headers show spatial unit type, spatial unit attribute and year of edition.

File Type

Fields (.mid/.mif)

Fields (ESRI shp)

Data Type

SLA

STATE_CODE_2011

State_code

Character (1)

SLA_MAINCODE_2011

Sla_code11

Character (9)

SLA_NAME_2011

Sla_name11

Character (50)

SLA_5DIGITCODE_2011

Sla_5digit

Character (5)

SLA_REGIONCODE_2011

Sla_reg11

Character (9)

SSD

STATE_CODE_2011

State_code

Character (1)

SSD_CODE_2011

Ssd_code11

Character (5)

SSD_NAME_2011

Ssd_name11

Character (50)

SD

STATE_CODE_2011

State_code

Character (1)

SD_CODE_2011

Sd_code11

Character (3)

SD_NAME_2011

Sd_name11

Character (50)

STE

STATE_CODE_2011

State_code

Character (1)

STATE_NAME_2011

State_name

Character (50)

LGA

STATE_CODE_2011

State_code

Character (1)

LGA_CODE_2011

Lga_code11

Character (5)

LGA_NAME_2011

Lga_name11

Character (50)

SDIST

SDIST_CODE_2011

Sdist_code

Character (4)

SDIST_NAME_2011

Sdist_name

Character (50)

SRS

STATE_CODE_2011

State_code

Character (1)

SRS_CODE_2011

Srs_code11

Character (5)

SRS_NAME_2011

Srs_name11

Character (50)

SR

STATE_CODE_2011

State_code

Character (1)

SR_CODE_2011

Sr_code11

Character (4)

SR_NAME_2011

Sr_name11

Character (30)

MSR

STATE_CODE_2011

State_code

Character (1)

MSR_CODE_2011

Msr_code11

Character (2)

MSR_NAME_2011

Msr_name11

Character (50)

Data Quality

The ASGC Edition 2011 digital boundaries are all based upon the SLA boundaries of the ASGC Edition 2011. This year to assist in the change over to the ASGS, SLAs were aggregated up from the 2011 Mesh Blocks (MBs). This was done to ensure that both the ASGC and the ASGS had the same building block to assist with comparability between the two classifications.

The differences between the MB based LGAs and the actual boundaries is minimal and not statistically significant.

While the topological consistency of the data can be regarded as high there may be very small errors such as gaps, overlaps and bow-ties.

Metadata

Refer to the Explanatory Notes for the Metadata Proforma in this product.

Reference

Information regarding the underlying concepts of the Australian Standard Geographical Classification and its Structures may be found in the Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) 2011 (cat. no. 1216.0). A publication is produced for each edition of the ASGC and the publication for the ASGC Edition 2011 will be available from 16 September 2011.

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